Word: bogalusa
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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When those kids outgrew high school football, though, they left for the cities: New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Houston, Atlanta, Boston. They were seeking success--even in Bogalusa, Louisiana, a kid learned to hustle. Even in Bogalusa, that small, relatively tight community, people failed and people made it. Bogalusa had a lot of safety nets out: family, neighbors, community, no matter how far you fall. The problem was that Bogalusa had no buildings tall enough to jump from; for one middle-aged man, the nets were useless, so he just sat in his car and rolled up the windows...
They went skinny-dipping in the old Blue Hole on Bogalusa Creek--with a little peer pressure you can do that at Christmas in Louisiana. They mounted bottle rocket wars in shopping center parking lots after midnight. Old times. Then the new year was on them and they left. New safety nets kept sliding underneath them: friends typed their theses, roommates fronted them money, parents kept in touch, old comrades offered them jobs. New ties that bind, in place of a home. When you're young, you're always making it, there's always time...
When those kids outgrew high school football, though, they left for the cities: New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Houston, Atlanta, Boston. They were seeking success--even in Bogalusa, Louisiana, a kid learned to hustle. Even in Bogalusa, that small, relatively tight community, people failed and people made it. Bogalusa had a lot of safety nets out: family, neighbors, community, no matter how far you fall. The problem was that Bogalusa had no buildings tall enough to jump from; for one middle-aged man, the nets were useless, so he just sat in his car and rolled up the windows...
They went skinny-dipping in the old Blue Hole on Bogalusa Creek--with a little peer pressure you can do that at Christmas in Louisiana. They mounted bottle rocket wars in shopping center parking lots after midnight. Old times. Then the new year was on them and they left. New safety nets kept sliding underneath them: friends typed their theses, roommates fronted them money, parents kept in touch, old comrades offered them jobs. New ties that bind, in place of a home. When you're young, you're always making it, there's always time...
...Allman Brothers Band-Jimmy Carter for President concert to leave me wondering what is going on in the New South--specifically, whether the kinds of minor generation-gap-bridging miracles taking place in the plush northwest suburbs of Atlanta are also taking place in Knoxville, Greenville, Pahokee, Biloxi, Bogalusa, Tuscaloosa, Arkadelphia, and Nacogdoches...